It's funny reading some of the posts in response to what Gies said on RebelFM in this thread. Seems to me that some people are being just as inflammatory as Gies is said to be in an effort to balance the scales.
What sticks out about this game for me now that I've finally gotten to play it after listening to all the hype since it's PC release are the following:
-combat isn't anything to put up on a pedestal. It's decent but I personally think Dark Souls or Demon's Souls do the same thing but considerably better.
-the story is mature and definitely cool (imo) but the way it's strung together and edited can be clumsy. I don't think the overall quality of the story telling, pacing, etc is above and beyond that of Mass Effect, Fallout or New Vegas. Different, yes, more mature, yes. Deeper, maybe but it does have the advantage of coming from an existing book series.
-the game seems equally as glitchy as any other big RPG I've played. Just now (and this isn't the first glitch by and means) I lost the ability to save for a good 10 minutes. I thought that the game was designed that way until I died and then got booted straight to the main menu. I wasn't able to continue from there and thought that I'd lost all my progress. Quitting to the title screen got my continue option back but I'd lost 10-15 minutes of progress.
I am playing the 360 version so the glitches might be down to that.
Long story short I think it's objectively a great game (though subjectively I find it good, not great so far) but it's far from the godly level some people claim it to be (those same people seem to think that gives them the right to spit on the Mass Effects and Fallouts).
i don't think people hating on fallout and people hating on ME are the same people. And the main points driven against mass effect in comparison to the witcher is the dualistic nature of mass effect, dividing everything between strictly good and bad and providing little consequences for your choices.
that and gies just seems to be contrarian for the sake of it.